Review: The Falling Machine, Andrew P. Mayer

I think we’ll all need to agree that steampunk is now approaching its use-by date. I’m not meaning this in spiteful way, more that steampunk has settled into that comfortable middle-age of genres – there are still just enough newbies out there who don’t think it’s old hat yet, but in itself it’s widening around the middle and becoming all-too-predictable.

So let’s compare it to true sci-fi. Back in the 1950s science fiction was brand-spanking new. It was crazy aliens, rockets, flying cars and keen-as-beans astronauts. Today it’s pretty much settled into a series of familiar tropes. Things like warp drives and hyperdrives, giant spaceships and wars with unknown powers. The genre is driven best by people who understand things tech, and 9 times out of 10 you’ll be getting the same old space opera with inter-changeable characters and predictable narrative.

And there we say welcome to The Falling Machine. While Meyer writes well, this is pretty familiar stuff with ever-so-slight twists on steampunk canon. I’d recommend it for reading on a holiday, or perhaps on the bus.